PhotoSat Confirms Digitalglobe's WorldView-3 Satellite Accuracy

WorldView-3, a high-resolution commercial satellite by DigitalGlobe, is as accurate as it should be according to a study by Vancouver based PhotoSat. In fact, the study shows that WordlView’s 30 centimeter resolution satellite is accurate to within 15 centimeters, a remarkable achievement.

“The DigitalGlobe WorldView-3 satellite data is the highest quality satellite photo data that PhotoSat has ever processed,” said Gerry Mitchell, President of PhotoSat. “In this test, an elevation grid extracted from stereo WorldView-3 satellite photos matches a highly accurate LiDAR elevation grid to better than 15 cm in elevation. This result takes satellite elevation mapping into the engineering design and construction markets and directly competes with LiDAR and high resolution air photo mapping for applications like flood plain monitoring.”
The study was produced using a 50 cm grid of elevations using PhotoSat’s proprietary geophysical processing technology with stereo satellite images taken by WorldView-3.
PhotoSat then compared their data to 50 cm LiDAR elevation grid which is accurate to approximately 5 cm in elevation and available on the OpenTopography website. The size of the comparison area was 88 square kilometers.
“The fact that PhotoSat has validated our elevation data to within 15 cm is amazing and even exceeds our initial expectations,” said Kenyon Waugh, DigitalGlobe’s senior director of vertical segment products. “With these elevation products, customers in the oil, gas, and mining sectors can leverage our truly global reach and realize cost savings on the order of 50 percent.”
– Read the press release.

About Marc Boucher

Boucher is an entrepreneur, writer, editor & publisher. He is the founder of SpaceRef Canada Interactive Inc, CEO and co-founder of SpaceRef U.S., advisor and co-founder of the Canadian Space Commerce Association, and director and co-founder of MaxQ Accelerator Inc. Previously he was the founder of Maple Square, Canada's first internet directory and search engine which he sold.

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